


The Stakeout

by DaisyNinjaGirl



Category: The Unusuals
Genre: Conversational Vignette, Gen, Never Have I Ever, PoC, Secrets, The Orangina vs Budweiser Debate, Why does Jason Walsh live in a diner anyway?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyNinjaGirl/pseuds/DaisyNinjaGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which we find out some secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stakeout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beth H (bethbethbeth)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethbethbeth/gifts).



The public school brooded, heavy and blocky, from the Abandon All Hope era of civil design.  Fulgent lamps glowed over the front door, orange and menacing.  Two buildings down, an only slightly battered car waited patiently for the ashy gutters of the night to wind down into day. 

Casey Shraeger opened the car door and slid inside, her bag of goodies spilling out onto her lap.  Walsh looked up.  “This is really your diary?  I thought it was all about sex stuff.”

Casey snatched.  “Hey!  That’s my private gear!”

Walsh shrugged.  “I’m a trained detective.  I look at stuff.  It’s in my job description and everything.”

“For criminals!”

He shrugged again - “you shouldn’t have let us use your car, then.  Or left it in the glove box.”  He pawed at the bag on Shraeger’s lap.  “Did you get me any pickles?”

She gave him a sour look.  “Oh, sure, a book with a lock, in a bag, shoved in behind all the manuals – _that’s_ open game to you.”

“You want to let everyone know you’ve got a secret, they’ll do anything to work out what it is.”  He tapped his forehead conspiratorially.  “You want to keep a secret – hide it in plain sight.  What does ‘fulgent’ mean, anyway?  Is that dirty?”

She wrinkled her nose.  “I didn’t get you pickles.”  She frowned.  “What’s _your_ secret, anyway?”

“I got a lot of secrets, Shraeger, we already covered that.”

“No, really – why do you live in a _diner_?”

“Rent’s cheap,” he grunted.

The two back doors of the car opened, and Banks and Delahoy climbed in.  “Back of the school is clear, the uniforms haven’t seen anything.  Pretty boring stakeout.”  Delahoy’s shoulders twitched.  “So what are we talking about?”

“Secrets,” Shraeger said serenely.  “Let’s play Truth or Dare…”

“No… No, man, you don’t want to do that.”  Banks shook his head.

Delahoy sniffed.  “I prefer Never Have I Ever.”  He reached over the seat and grabbed the food bag.  “Are there pickles in here?”

“Hey!”

Banks grabbed out the clinking bottles.  He paused.  “You got us… _Orangina?_ ”

“It was all they had,” Casey said defensively.  “It was this or flat ginger ale.  Or Budweiser _._ ”

“Never have I ever drunk Orangina!” Delahoy said cheerfully.  He clinked his bottle with Banks’ who sighed and took a swig from his.  “What’s wrong with the King of Beer?”

“Regs,” she said.  “No alcohol on duty.”

“Watch out – she’s channelling Alvarez.”

“Anyway, they make that stuff with sawdust.”

“Hey!” Walsh said over his shoulder.  “That’s just not true.  You’re disrespecting our beer, here.”

“Look it up sometime.”

His eyebrows furrowed deeply.  “Never have I ever kept a _secret sex diary_.”

“This means war,” Shraeger said, as she opened her soda bottle.

“Interesting,” Delahoy said, as he watched her drink.  “So, are you more of a Mills and Boon type, or are you going for hard core _500 Shades of Grey_ territory?”

“She’s _fulgent_ ,” Walsh said.

“Huh.”  Delahoy raised a questioning finger.  “Is that like a synonym for tumescent?  When I was a kid I always really wanted to know what that word meant.”

“Hey!  Hey, guys-“ Banks was peering out the window.  “That guy over there – does he look like our perp?”

Walsh peered at the police sketch with his penlight, squinted out the window.  “Nah.  Not our guy.  Banks!  Your turn.”

Leo shrugged.  “Never have I ever… gone ballroom dancing?”

Walsh made a slight exasperated noise in his throat and took a swig.  They all looked at him.  “Date with Beaumont!”  His eyebrows furrowed again.  “What about you, Shraeger?  Rich girl like you…?”

“They tried to make me take lessons.  After the third time I kneed a guy in the crotch, Mom gave up.  Dancing instructors are really handsy.”  She tapped her finger against the glass, thoughtfully.  “Never have I ever… had sex in a storage closet.”  She blinked.  “Really?  All _three_ of you?”

“Not with _each other_ , Shraeger,” Banks said defensively, “that’d be weird.  But you could say that you’ve never had a threesome in a storage closet…”  He brightened a little.

“Huh.  I don’t think I need to know the details.  Never have I ever…” her eyes slid to Walsh – “drunk and gambled away my fortune, leaving me only with a humble food and/or beverage service establishment with which I might make a modest living…”

His Orangina remained untasted.  “That’s the plot from _Cheers_ , Shraeger.”

“Really?  Damn.”

“My turn,” he said, his voice gravelly.  “Never have I ever worn women’s underwear.”

Casey took a sip.  “That’s all you got?  Who’s going to wear women’s underwear but me?”

But he was peering in the rear view mirror with an interested expression.  Delahoy pinched his nose.  “It was a case…”

Leo Banks shook his head.  “What happens undercover _stays_ undercover.  Hey, Shraeger, on your 10 o’clock.”

“Ooh,” she perked up a little, “possibly a criminal.”

“Hold your horses, rookie,” Walsh said, “we want some probable cause first.”

“Oh come on, baby,” she crooned, “come to Mamma, give her what she needs…”

“Super secret sex diary?” Banks asked.

“Best not to go there,” Delahoy told him.

“And he’s going into the school.  He scores!  _Yes_!  Oh, yeah baby!  That’s the spot.”

“Uh, Shraeger, your sex talk might need some work.”  Banks eased out of the car and pulled out his radio.  “We are observing a breaking and entering – officers investigating now.”

Walsh and Shraeger followed him out, and crept to either side of the door, their sidearms out.  “I do _not_ sound like that when I’m having sex,” she hissed.

“I’m sure Davis is a lucky guy,” he said, comfortingly.

“Oh yeah?  You don’t want to know what Beaumont and I talk about on girl’s night out, she says-“

“Hey.  Shraeger.  _Boundaries._ ”

She shot him a filthy look.

“I hate to interrupt, but we’re working now?”  Banks and Delahoy had their pistols trained on the suspect, a middle aged balding man carrying a stack of carelessly piled boxes.  There was a frozen moment of silence until he threw the boxes at the four detectives and scuttled up the stairs.  They all lunged after him, slipping on the boxes and, more importantly, the boxes’ contents as they hurtled after the suspect.  Delahoy went down first, the stairs slippery, Shraeger and Banks landing hard on top of him.  At the top of the stairs, the perp had one final box open and was flinging his wares at the detectives…

At all expect Jason Walsh who had backtracked down a side corridor instead and came round the back.  “At ease, buddy, you can deal with your baked goods later…”  The mad baker eased his pies down and let himself be handcuffed.  Jason looked down the stairs at his colleagues and nodded approvingly.  “Never have I ever taken a custard pie in the face…”

“I won’t forget this, Walsh,” Casey growled.  He grinned profoundly.

***

The sunlight was faded but clean looking, the early morning that belonged to garbage collectors, joggers, and police.  Jason Walsh got out of Casey’s car and looked at her speculatively -  she’d cleaned off some of the custard with napkins but she was still kinda… confectionaried.  “Come on inside,” he said, “I’ll give you breakfast.” 

She parked and got out stiffly, followed him inside as he flicked on the neon lights and turned the sign to open.  “OK, seriously Walsh, I really gotta know.  Why a _diner_?  There are a lot of cheap places to live – this dive you’ve got a pack of strangers walking into your house every day.”

He looked up from the grill he was turning on, the pancake batter he was mixing and he shrugged.  “I don’t like eating alone.”

“That’s it?”

“Do you need a better reason?”

She sat down at the counter and held out her plate for pancakes.  “I guess not.”

**Author's Note:**

> Budweiser and sawdust – so, sawdust is the story I heard from an engineer who used to build breweries, but according to Wikipedia, Which Is Your Friend, it’s actually beechwood chips which are supposed to smooth out the flavour.


End file.
